“It’s been a real pleasure, Hazel. I hope you find your horrible fungi.”
“Thanks, Andrew. Who knows, I might see you up at the farm later.”
He smiles, but it’s polite. Perfunctory. He doesn’t think he’ll be seeing me again, at the farm or anywhere else. I think of a house scurrying through a dimly lit forest and feel that prickle on the back of my neck a second time. Like a warning.
4
The pharmacy is in the square opposite the bench. I can see the little green cross lit up through the shimmering veil of mist as I head toward it. The bell over the door rings as I enter, but there’s only one other person standing inside and they are working behind the counter. I bet that the new shopping center has stolen all the customers away. Even Mum goes there these days, getting her highlights done in the big fancy hairdresser by the fountain. Looking around me at the strip lighting and fly-spotted convex mirrors, I’m not surprised. Like so many other things in Idless, the little pharmacy has resisted modernization.
By now I’ve reached the till and look up. The woman behind the counter runs her eyes briefly up and down me before making a high-pitched squeal of excitement.
“Hazel?” She gasps, clutching her hands together. “Is that you?”
I take in the soft waves of her hair, so blond it burns white beneath the overheads. Hazy green eyes, crinkled into a smile. It’s the voice which does it, though. Dreamy and soft, like melting ice cream.
“Suzie? Suzie Trebath?”
“Yes! Well, I haven’t been Trebath since I married Teddy a while back.” Suzie taps the name badge with her fingernail. It readsSUSAN WHITE. “Hazel! Gosh! Howareyou? It’s been years! You back for good or just visiting?”
“We’re house-sitting for our parents. Well, cat-sitting, really. They’re on a cruise to the Bahamas.”
“Oh, lucky them! Teddy and I honeymooned there. I see your parents around sometimes. Your mum is so nice to me.”
I always knew Suzie would grow into a glossy, cover girl beauty. With her delicate, elfin features and bouncy blond waves, she’d looked just like Grace Kelly. Even our teachers had thought so. I swiftly pocket my prescription. I can’t file it here, not with my old school friend standing in front of me. I don’t want her to see the cracks in my life, my finger with the band of pale skin where I’d once worn a wedding ring. I reach out for the nearest thing to me—a small can of hair spray—and put it on the counter.
“Can I get some aspirin too, please?”
“Of course! Hey, your mum told me your husband is a beekeeper—Joe, is it? That’s wild, Hazel! That’s just soyou!”
Suzie is exactly as I remember her. Saccharine sweet and almost impossible to hate. I don’t tell her about the Decree Absolute. I just let her keep talking, and by the time she’s scanned my hair spray and painkillers, she’s told me all about her husband, Teddy, how they bought and renovated her childhood home, and the holiday they’re planning in the New Year. I learn that Teddy is a dentist, that he’s a Taurus. He’s everything she ever wanted.
“Anything else, Hazel?”
My eye is caught by the packs of brightly wrapped gum on the counter and I reach out for it in amazement. “Is this— It is, it’s Wonderland gum! I didn’t know they made this stuff anymore.”
Suzie arches an eyebrow. “It’s full of sugar, that’s why. Teddy says sugar is way worse for you than smoking.”
Teddy sounds like a real dick, I think before handing the gum to Suzie. “Well, I’ll take two packs, then. I haven’t tasted this since I was fifteen.”
And suddenly I’m catapulted right back to school, me and Suzie and Abigail, our legs entwined on the grass, sunshine and pink gum and sweet breath, giggling. It seems so long ago. Another lifetime.
Behind me, the bell over the door rings, and Suzie’s attention is drawn to the elderly woman who enters, pushing a walking frame ahead of her.
“Hey, Mrs. Scott, I’ve got everything right here for you, ready to go!” Suzie tells her before turning back to me and asking, “You want your receipt, honey?”
“Sure.”
“It’s so good to see you, Hazel. Keep in touch, won’t you?”
I nod, but the ugly noise in my head is starting to clang like a bell. I should have got a bottle of water too. Now I’ll have to dry-swallow these. I pass Mrs. Scott on the way out, and she gives me a strange look, as if she recognizes me.We’re all kin here one way or another, Mrs. Scott, I think as I push open the door into a fine rain falling like silver dust. The cold air is full of woodsmoke. I inhale deeply, thinking about devil’s fingers and houses running away from me, no matter how close I get. Birdsong drifts down from trees.
The mist creeps, creeps.
5
I’m halfway to the woods when I see him again. The truck pulls over a little way ahead of me, just before the turnoff that will take me over the packhorse bridge. The rain is falling a little heavier now, pattering on the hood of my coat. My headache is gone, but my tongue is coated with the sour taste of aspirin, and a sadness is creeping in, as dull and heavy as the brown envelope still sitting in my childhood bedroom. I keep thinking about Joe saying,I can’t do this anymore, Hazel, and the unfairness of everything. Something about the way he’d said those words—humbly and without fanfare, as if a structure as complex as my love for him could be so easily dismantled—has left a weight sitting on my chest ever since.
“Hey! Hazel!” Andrew is leaning out the driver’s window with his arm hooked over the door. Violet exhaust smoke rises in the cold air. “I’m heading up to the house. You want to hop in?”